Underneath the Microscope
by Butterfly-Potpourri
Summary: He watched the replica be born. Replica Riku, Axel, Vexen drabble. Rated for violence.


**Underneath the Microscope-**

Underneath the microscope his fear is magnified. The bloodshot eyes are even wider and more grotesque beneath the lens. They stare at the pale hands that stroke his cheek lovingly before using the same hand to cut away at him. Using knife and spoon as if he were at some perverse feast, the eyeballs come out quite easily. They were the wrong color anyways.

_Leeuwenhoek, Leeuwenhoek, can you see what I see?_

The subject's nails dig fiercely into the flesh of his palms. Attempting to break free of the leather harnesses that bind him down, he's trembling. Making small, animal like noises due to the intense horror that's overcome him. From this angle, the scientist can see the lines etched into the stiff fingertips. _It won't matter if you've got a fingerprint like no one else; you're still a Nobody._

_He can see the blue tinted veins as they pop out beneath snow-white skin_

You can see him writhe from the eyepiece, his cracked and bleeding lips pleading for help, telling him to please stop. Desperately clinging to life at all costs, begging for mercy, "I didn't do anything wrong". He wonders why it matters; the specimen can't feel it anyways. He's already dead, so why even bother pretending?

_Magnification at the 440 power_

So he snips away at the already flaking flesh. Freezing hands move the scissors across and empty rib cage towards a heart that isn't even there. His ungloved hands work through the bloodcurdling shrieks filling up the empty space in the underground laboratory.

_Pulsing, writhing, screaming_

Pulling out bones and stripping off skin, blood and guts roll onto the white marble table. Scalpels and tweezers nearby, his hands work with all the prestige of a surgeon. He uses his bare hands to peel off the scalp revealing the grayish matter inside. _You won't be needing this_, he says aloud, dropping the lumps of brain into the waste bin next to the discarded eyeballs.

_And it smells like death down here, even as this thing is slowly coming to life._

At last the scientist's pulls the skin over a wooden skeleton and stitches him up. He pushes green plaster eyes into the empty sockets and sews the vibrant strands of hair into the tiny holes of the scalp. And the final step is to fill him with the power of darkness. Always darkness, even though you have to have light to make the microscope work.

_From corpse to lens, then back again, I can see your pain magnified so perfectly through the glass_

He stabs the IV into a vein that leads to nowhere and doesn't administer any pain killers. _You can't feel anyways._ Then he goes to wash his hands and leaves the puppet on the operating table.

_He loves his corpse, he loves his corpse, but he loves the real thing more of course_

Axel witnessed the sickening birth of a nothing made of wood and flesh. The boy that once was is covered in plaster and synthetic string, and the boy that should be is not him. Axel feels sorry for him, he can't go back to who he once was, and he'll never be Riku. More than the rest of them he is a Nobody.

"_But you're not even really a Nobody, little replica."_

He watches as Vexen cleans the tools, running freezing water over the metal blades. Absolutely disgusting. What's the point of making this thing? Axel didn't bring this boy here to be made into an imitation.

"_But that's exactly what you brought him here for"._

Sometimes he thinks he really can feel. Because this man makes him sick. Sometimes he's sure he can hate him, does hate him. But that cool voice always tells him otherwise.

_"You can't feel anything at all" _

Axel thinks Vexen is really trying to convince himself more than anyone else. Because you'd have to feel something after doing that. Sickened, disgusted, mortified, something other than the cold exterior his superior displays.

_Or maybe he's just so beyond feeling…? _

Axel looks down at the Replica again. His plaster eyes are glazed over and his mouth is open slightly. Axel thinks he sees blood dribbling out of the corner of his mouth. He really feels sick.

_With the naked eye, your creation would have looked nothing more than monstrous. But underneath the microscope your gruesome birth is ethereal._

**xXx**

Yeah, so I managed to creep myself out. Fun. The best part about this was that Kyo was playing We Love Katamari, and was rolling a rainbow katamari through a field of flowers. Doesn't fit the mood exactly.

Oh and Leeuwenhoek was the inventor of the microscope, so I thought it fit.


End file.
